How to Simplify and Optimize Your Complex Amazon Product Catalogue

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How to Simplify Your Complex Amazon Product Catalogue

6 MIN READ | AUGUST, 2024 | by Lydia Steinmetz

Is your Amazon product catalogue in disarray? You're not facing this alone. Many vendors grapple with this challenge, leading to data mistrust and flawed decision-making. Let's use this article to demystify the intricacies of the Amazon product catalogue and help you navigate and resolve these issues effectively.

The myth of a ‘One size fits all’ catalogue

Though you likely manage hundreds or thousands Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), imagine, for simplicity, you have 20. While you're familiar with all of your SKUs, not all may be e-commerce relevant.

This is a representation of your complete product range:

On Amazon, there is a subset of your brand’s products. The image above shows that while the majority of SKUs are associated with an Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN), this is not universally true for all SKUs. ASINs are typically created when an item is first listed on the platform.

The initial product listing and ASIN generation for your items can be done by other retailers as well.

"Your ASINs" as a subset of "Your Products":

It's crucial to differentiate between "Your Products", "Your Vendor Catalogue" and "Your Brand's ASINs".

Your catalog encompasses all items in your Vendor Central, typically those your team recognizes. However, you might be unaware of missing ASINs.

This discrepancy often causes confusion when third-party or Amazon data includes information about brand-related ASINs absent from your catalogue.

SOLUTION

Submit a support ticket or contact your vendor manager sharing a list of the missing ASINs, informing Amazon of their association with your registered brand. Amazon typically addresses these issues within 48 hours.

"Your Vendor Catalog" as a subset of "Your ASINs":

Conversely, your catalog might include products unrelated to your brand due to incorrect listings by others:

SOLUTION

Open a support ticket or reach out to your Vendor Central manager to alert Amazon and request removal of these items from your catalogue. Amazon usually takes a week to resolve this.

"Your Vendor Catalogue" containing non-brand products:

Understand advertising implications

The Amazon product catalogue's structure significantly impacts advertising strategies. Understanding these connections is crucial for optimizing your marketing efforts and maximizing return on investment.

By addressing the complexities of your Amazon product catalogue, you can make data-driven decisions, streamline operations, and enhance your overall performance on the platform. Remember, a well-managed catalogue is the foundation of successful e-commerce operations.

Are you advertising products not in your catalogue?

Your marketing team's advertising scope can extend beyond your vendor catalog. This means they can advertise brand products not listed in your vendor catalog. Even when advertising catalogue items, attribution may credit sales to other brand products you don’t know of. This is because while they may be in "Your ASINs", but absent from "Your Vendor Catalogue."

Typically, 10%-20% of advertised products fall into this unknown category.

This creates problems when selling products not directly supplied to Amazon. Companies often calculate media contribution by comparing advertising sales to total sales (Ordered Revenue / Media Sales) / Ordered Revenue. This method can significantly inflate media contribution due to incomplete retail data.

Another factor contributing to data discrepancies is missing manufacturer information. For a deeper dive into this issue, check this article about common Amazon data issues and how to fix them.

An example view of advertising brand products outside your vendor catalogue:

The ultimate winner: Virtual Bundles

Technically, virtual bundles are part of your vendor catalogue. However, ⚠️ ASINs don’t exist for retail data.

In advertising metrics, performance data (clicks, sales, costs) is reported on the virtual bundle. Though, retail data, including vendor central and retail analytics reports, attributes information to the individual ASINs comprising the bundle.

Consequently, advertising a virtual bundle shows one sold unit and corresponding revenue. In retail data, you'll find one ordered unit for each of the two ASINs within the bundle. This discrepancy complicates advertising and retail data comparisons.

Advertising and retail data mapping for virtual bundles:

There are two solutions

Understand this behavior (which you've likely achieved by reading this analysis)

Leverage Catapult

Our Amazon analytics solution manages this complexity by accurately mapping all products and catalogues, providing full transparency and preventing reporting errors and costly decision-making mistakes.

START WITH A DEMO

Interested to see how Catapult works?

Schedule a quick product demo and we'll show you how Catapult for Amazon works!

SCHEDULE A DEMO

By grasping these nuances of the Amazon product catalogue and utilizing advanced tools like Catapult, you can navigate the complexities of Amazon advertising more effectively.

This understanding enables data-driven decisions, optimizes your marketing strategies, and ultimately enhances your brand's performance on the platform.

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About the author

Lydia Steinmetz

As Senior Customer Success Manager at CATAPULT, Lydia is the first point of contact for our clients. She guides them through onboarding, ensures smooth collaboration, and provides support whenever challenges arise. Acting as a trusted partner, she answers day-to-day questions and helps shape long-term growth initiatives together with our clients.

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